My House - Come on In!

Today, I realized you don't know much about my house, so I thought I'd start a sporadic little series taking you through it. First of all, you should know, we live in a big old farm house that was built in 1861. It's an Italianate Victorian and when we first bought it, it was painted blue with pink shutters and all the gingerbread was painted contrasting colors. We (well, not us - the painters) painted it this soft yellow color; the shutters are a khaki green color and the doors are, yes, purple. I love my purple doors.
 We live in a lovely little town with an adorable square that was actually featured in the movie "Groundhog Day".
Today, I'll show you the foyer and tell you what I like and don't like about it:

What I like:

I like the paint. When we moved in it was flowered wallpaper everywhere.

I love that Chinese storage piece. It hides a multitude of messes - school books, dog bones, etc.

I love the lamp - mostly because it was my grandma's. Here it is up close:

At one point it had a matching shade, but it was broken at one point and I actually cried (I know- it's just a thing). I still love it.

I love the bird picture. I've always loved birds (even before the days of "put a bird on it"). This picture is interesting because the feathers are actually real and the rest is watercolor.

I got it in a thrift store and had it reframed in faux bamboo.

Here's another view of the foyer:

I like the chandelier more than I used to. It had old-fashioned fussy glass globes when we moved in. I took them off and we lived with the bare candles for awhile, but it was too bright and shiny. Just recently, I put the shades on and it has made a huge difference. They diffuse the light and give it an oriental feel. I still wish the brass wasn't quite so shiny though.

I love this painting:

It's on that wall facing the stairs at the bottom. My grandma painted it. When she was 69, my grandfather died. She had never finished college, so she went back and majored in art and French. She was a foreign exchange student at the age of 71! Then she studied art in Paris for a number of years and lived to 90. She was amazing.

What I don't like:

I don't really love the floor color. It's too neutral for me. I'd love them to be rich and dark. Someday..

I don't like that the doorknob to the library (at the end of this pic) is, like 2 and a half feet off the ground. Were people that short way back when? The good thing about an old house is you get to call stuff like that "charming" and "character" and not worry about it too much.

So that's my foyer. I'll post about another room next week. Thanks for visiting!
Have a great day!